From the Shadows
by Illustrious
Summary: Set two years after the Second War ends. Harry rediscovers old loves, whilst old enemies rise to challenge him in an attempt to destroy all he holds dear. Please Read and Review! Chapter Three Posted!
1. Into the Breach

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Prologue  
  
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It was a dark night. Inky blackness had spilt over space, and for a while nothing was visible, save the pale moon, although even this was a mere blur, barely distinguishable from its black surroundings. It stayed this way for hours, and for those hours the universe seemed lost, floundering in a sea of darkness. Then, from nowhere, a single star blazed across the sky, leaving a chalky trail of dust behind it. Momentarily, this one star illuminated the entire cosmos, before disappearing and leaving space at the mercy of the darkness once more. This lone shooting star, although now gone, seemed to stir the rest of the oppressed stellar lights, calling them to arms by its sacrifice. At first, only the brightest stars fought through the haze. These were slowly joined by more, and soon the sky was a sea of glimmering balls of fire, and so light returned to the universe.   
  
Somewhere far below on earth, a boy sat on a stony windowsill, his knees curled up to his chest and his arms wrapped tightly around them. His face seemed to give a flicker of a smile as he saw the light, but like the shooting star, this quickly vanished, leaving his expression empty and void. He sat there the rest of the night, not moving, his breathing shallow and his eyes unfocussed. By the time the sun rose over the tall hills on the horizon he was asleep, now bathed in warm, gentle rays. The battles of the night were forgotten, and when he awoke he felt content. Gone was the darkness, and now in the light, none feared the next night, although its coming was as inevitable as death itself.  
  
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Chapter One: Into the breach  
  
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It was now past dusk, and all the inhabitants of St. Georges Street had long since scurried back into their terraced houses to avoid the gangs that frequently roamed around the area by night. The only light was from the bright moon for the street lamps had been smashed years ago. The walls that lined off the street from the houses were mostly broken, and those bricks that stood were old and would surely collapse if the slightest pressure were applied to them.   
  
As if tempting fate, a young man was walking casually down the street. He carried himself with a sense of purpose that was in stark difference to the zombie-like fashion in which all the other locals moved. However, half way down the street he stopped. He turned to survey the house he had stopped by. In contrast to the other houses that were squashed together as far as possible, this one stood alone as if the other houses were afraid of it and had left it alone. Its windows had been carelessly covered with wooden shutters that were now rotting, and much of the glass was mashed. Outside, the weeds ran rampant over the once glorious flowers, and as it swung open, the wrought-iron gate creaked loudly as if it had not been opened for centuries. The young man looked at the house with a sense of foreboding, before carrying on down the stony path to the front door, stepping as lightly as possible. There was nothing strange about this scene, perhaps, although no one had visited the old house for centuries. It had been boarded up for as long as even the oldest residents could remember. A woman across the street observed the young mans plight with interest; the creaking had caught her attention as she had walked home from the local shop. Although keen to not be caught in the street after dusk, the sight of the young man drew her attention. She edged up next to the nearest wall, and resumed peering at the unfolding spectacle.  
  
Although it was getting too dark to see clearly, the woman saw the young man reach inside his strange cloak and pull out what seemed to be a wooden rod. He then proceeded to tap this rod against the locked door, and a gentle yellow light appeared from its tip. As if by magic, the lock unhitched itself, and the door swung open. Now spellbound, the woman peered forward to get a better view of the doorway. In doing so, her wavering arm caught a lid of a bin, knocking it off its rest and causing it to fall and clatter loudly on the pavement. For an instant, the young man's attention was drawn to the noise across the street, but this was all it took. A jet of red light streamed into his back, causing him to collapse onto the floor. It had seemingly come from inside the house, although the woman knew this to be impossible, the house had been abandoned for years. Then a hooded figure appeared, this second one also holding a wooden implement. It jumped over the limp body of the first man and then sprinted down the path. Pausing to look at the old woman only for a second, the mysterious stranger carried on down the street, disappearing round a distant corner.  
  
Instead of helping the man, she panicked and took off away from the scene in terror. It was not for several more hours before help came to the man lying on the doorway.  
  
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Harry's eyes fluttered open to find himself on a white-sheeted bed in a brightly lit room. He was very dizzy, but managed to sit up. Looking around him, he saw a tall man sitting on a chair by his bed.  
  
"Welcome back to the land of the living, Harry." The man said in a light Scottish accent. It took Harry a moment or two to compose his thoughts, before his brain whirred into action and the name of the man came to him.  
  
"Daniel. What happened?" Harry asked, still not remembering what had caused him to end up in a hospital.  
  
"As you went into the house, some bloody muggle who was watching you knocked off a bin lid, and then someone hit you with a stunning spell before you could block it. The target then took off down the street. I had to alter the woman's mind and then I apparated to the corner to try and catch him, but he was gone."  
  
Realisation dawned on Harry like a splashing of cold water, and he immediately looked annoyed.  
  
"Damn." Was all he could muster. Daniel's eyebrows flickered for a second, and then he turned his head back to the broadsheet paper open on his knee.  
  
"Yes, well, whoever he is, he's already managed to evade the ministry twice. I hear a ministry official has gone missing already, probably 'his' work. This is turning into another Black fiasco." Daniel said absentmindedly. Harry glowered daggers at his partner as soon as he had finished the sentence. The memory of his Godfather still caused him grief, even seven years after his death. Thankfully, before Harry could continue this train of thought a fat nurse bustled up to beside his bed, pointing a wand at him.  
  
"Please lie down Mr Potter." She said as Harry attempted to get out of the bed. "Honestly, you Aurors are all the same. 'I'm invincible'" she mimicked with a heavy Irish accent. Harry smiled in thankfulness that he didn't sound that way, and grudgingly he laid back down and allowed her to check him over. She waved her wand over him a few times, muttering some long Latin words, causing a blue light to shine from its tip. Within a few minutes, the dizziness had stopped and Harry felt relatively normal again.  
  
"Now, you're free to go." She said, and then bustled off to treat a man whose skin had turned green. Harry jumped off the bed and Daniel threw him a spare set of Muggle clothes he had brought with him to the hospital.   
  
"Sorry Harry. I just got word from Lupin. We have got to go and check out the house for any clues your attacker might have left." Daniel stated. Harry was about to ask him when he became so pompous, but thought better of it and kept quiet. He quickly pulled on the white T-shirt and Jeans that lay in a clumsy heap on the end of his bed, and then reached across to the quaint wooden table to grab his wand, before following his partner out of the ward doors. 


	2. Searching

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Chapter Two: Searching  
  
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As Harry walked up the street and through the creaky gate, he noticed that in the daylight, the old house didn't seem quite so intimidating. Harry also remembered that this time there was not a wanted man hiding inside waiting to hurt him. Also, having his partner by his side re-assured him; nothing could take on two Aurors. The two men walked up the garden path together, not speaking. As they reached the front door, Harry turned round to ensure the street behind him was empty this time. If there was something still hiding inside the house, Harry wanted to be sure his concentration wouldn't be shattered again. Still unlocked, the door to the house swung open easily. The same stuffy odour as he had smelt last night wafted into his nostrils and he began to grip his wand tightly, half expecting to be attacked again. Daniel seemed to be laid back, as always.   
  
"Lumos" Harry muttered, and immediately the house lit up, the light emanating from the tip of his wand. Everywhere he turned there was moth-eaten furniture, half submerged in dust, whilst cobwebs seemed to be strung like a giant mesh in the doorways. Daniel didn't seemed phased by this, and he began to sweep the floor and walls with his eyes.   
  
In many ways, Harry admired his partner. During the war, Daniel had lost his wife and his best friend. Harry had been there when they had died, so had Daniel. After returning late home from the Three Broomsticks together, they had walked in to Daniels flat, only to find them both lying dead on the floor, and two Death Eaters standing over their bodies. Harry and Daniel had managed to stun the attackers, but then Harry had had to restrain Daniel from ripping their bodies to pieces with his bare hands, before Ministry officials had come to remove them. Then, the two men had only twenty, and trainee Aurors.  
  
Now two years older and with the war over, Daniel had almost fully recovered. Harry no longer found his friend crying in the halls of the Ministry or sitting comatose in the office, his eyes reading the same three words over and over. It had been an amazing transformation, but Harry sometimes found himself envious of Daniel. Instead of beating his depression, Harry had locked it up and hidden it. Only in his sleep did it reveal itself. It was always the same picture of a tall, good-looking man with dark hair falling. Harry would always run over to the hole into which he had fallen, trying desperately to find his lost friend, consumed by a grief that would stay with him after he woke up, drenched in cold sweat.  
  
"Harry, take a look at this." Daniel shouted from the other side of the room. Harry woke up from his thoughts and looked over to Daniel who was intently looking at something on the ground. Harry quickly walked over there and knelt beside him, staring down at the floor in front of them. There was a small red stain on the carpet.  
  
"Looks like blood. We should take this back to the Ministry." Daniel concluded, quickly transfiguring a rat that was scurrying past him into a small glass vial. He then pointed his wand at the stain, and muttered "Fragillis Liquorium." The dried stain liquefied, and rose into the air, coaxed by Daniels wand. He then raised the vial with his spare hand and bottled the liquid, before replacing the sealed vial back into his pocket.  
  
"Why would there be blood in the carpet?" Harry thought out loud. Daniel did not answer. Instead, he had stood up and was now walking intently towards the nearest doorway. Harry began to talk again, but this time Daniel raised his hand for silence. Harry raised his wand and followed Daniel to the doorway, unsure what had spooked his partner. The new room was even dustier than the last one. From the furniture it contained; several old chairs and a fireplace, Harry concluded it was probably a living room, although now mould had spread over the chairs, and the carpet would throw up huge clouds of dust after every step.   
  
Harry beckoned Daniel over. "What?" he mouthed silently. Daniel turned his head to quickly survey the room. With his wand, he drew letters into the air. "Someone here." As soon as Harry saw the words light up, he readied himself for any attack. He felt the telltale surge of adrenaline make him ready to fight, but Daniel simply shook his head, before turning and gesturing Harry to start searching the room. Obligingly, Harry began to look behind the sofas, in a cupboard, but after a fruitless search he began to wonder whether Daniel had gone mad. Since neither of them had found anything remotely suspicious, save the dried blood, they began to leave the room.  
  
Just as Harry went through the doorway, he saw something shimmer in the corner of the room. The disturbance lasted only for a moment, and then it was gone again. For most wizards, this would have been just a sign of over-work, but Harry recognised it. He turned back into the room and went to the corner. Raising his wand, he shot a harmless bolt of purple light into the floor. Instead of hitting the carpet and dissipating, the light seemed to ricochet off something, a few feet above the ground. Breathing heavily, Harry tentatively reached down to the corner and grasped his fingers together. He had something, something soft, something familiar in his hands. Instantly recognising an invisibility cloak, despite losing his over four years ago, he pulled it off what ever it was covering.   
  
Harry gasped. It was a woman. She lay there prone, unmoving. Her breathing, now audible, was shallow and rasped. Harry gently rolled her onto her back, and to his horror there were deep gashes on her torso and her arms. Her robes had been slashed into pieces and stained a horrible, dark red. As Harry lifted up her robes he saw a large red stain on the carpet. There was so much blood everywhere that Harry was surprised she wasn't dead.   
  
By now, Daniel had turned and was eying the area around the woman's body. "This is odd, have you ever seen a spell that would do this?" he asked tentatively. Harry shook his head sadly.   
  
"We need to get her help. Go to St. Mungos, tell them to get a healer here right away." Daniel simply nodded, and with a crack he disappeared, leaving Harry alone with the unknown woman. Sighing, Harry gently brushed the hair away from her face. Her eyes were shut and her skin was near white, a small trickle of blood was slowly seeping from the corner of her mouth. Still, she was extremely good looking, Harry couldn't help but feel he had seen her somewhere before. The eerie silence of the house was soon broken by the appearance of several wizards dressed in white robes and the re-appearance of Daniel, now slightly out of breath. In an instant, the white robed men had taken the limp body of the woman, and once again Daniel and Harry were alone in the house. Now subdued, and with nothing left to do, they walked out of the house, slamming the door behind them.  
  
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Author's Note : This is a work in progress, please review if you want to see more chapters! 


	3. Thoughts and Reflections

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Chapter Three: Thoughts and Reflections  
  
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Harry walked in to his apartment, extremely tired. Throwing his jacket onto the rack in his small living room, he walked through into the small kitchen, grabbed a bag of crisps and then walked back through, munching slowly. After collapsing onto the single couch in the middle of the room, he picked up the creased paper that was lying on the small wooden coffee table in front of him. He'd already seen the front pages at work earlier; the news drought that currently plagued the Wizarding community had meant the Prophet had devoted the entire front page to the un-named criminal on the loose. Somehow, a reporter had got wind of Harry's encounter with the mysterious figure. Phrases such as 'Auror foiled' and 'Ministry in chaos' caused a wry smile to form on his otherwise sombre face.  
  
Harry had thought that after the war had ended, everyone would be tired of scare mongering and that petty criminals such as the one who was dubbed as 'The next you-know-who' by the Daily Prophet would not be glorified. He sighed, audibly. It was two days since he had rescued the woman from the house, and since then the entire Ministry had been sneering at him for losing against the criminal. Snide comments and superior glances were all the condolences he received from his fellow workers after being attacked. Daniel had told him to ignore it, and Harry did. He was used to being shunned by society, but by now he felt he should have earned their respect. Instead, they expected him to win.  
  
Harry threw down the Prophet with an exaggerated air of frustration, and then summoned his briefcase with a lazy "Accio Case." The tired looking brown leather briefcase had once belonged to his father when he was working. Lupin had repatriated it to him when he started his job at the Ministry; now Harry used it to store his case-notes. Flicking open the gold plated locks, Harry rummaged through the pile of folders and files that had been carelessly thrown in when he'd left his office earlier. He was about to cast another summoning spell, but then he found it, a blue file with an old and dog-eared cover. With the Ministry still rebuilding the Wizarding Community, there weren't the resources to buy new folders. Old notes were simply discarded, and then the new ones put in; this one had previously contained the case notes for a young Death Eater that had died recently. Harry vividly remembered how it had happened.  
  
It had been a wet day, the ground had been sodden and dark clouds had covered the skyline, menacing to rain further. Harry remembered how he had found the man by the cliffs somewhere along the South Coast. The man had refused to surrender, despite being alone and faced off against the Auror who had destroyed his master. They had duelled. For Harry it had been only too easy to block the poorly cast spells. He had been reluctant to return fire, still hoping to bring the man in alive. However, the man had then performed the Cruciatus curse, albeit badly. The bolt of light green light had hit the wet earth in front of him, singing the grass and sending up a small amount of mud that had splattered against Harry's robes. By then, the man's face had been screwed up in misery. He had been shouting and performing the unforgivable curses at random, his vision so blurred with tears that none of them even came close to Harry. Unknowingly, the man had then stumbled back right to the very edge of the cliff. His flailing arms had dropped the wand from his hands, and then, with a single glance at Harry, the man had thrown himself after it. Harry still remembered the expression of utter hatred mixed with sick fear on the man's face; it still followed him in his dreams. Harry had tried to save him, but before he could stop the man's fall, he had hit the ground, dead.  
  
Harry still felt angry with himself for that, although no one else seemed to care that the man could have been brought in alive. He consoled himself that now, the last known Death Eater had been neutralised and now, maybe, his world could move on.  
  
Slowly coming out from his dream-like state, Harry began fingering the pages in the file. He pulled them out, and began reading them over, again. The Ministry, in truth, knew very little about him considering he was the only active target still on the Aurors lists. They had just about enough evidence to suggest he was a male, but no name, nationality or visual profile. However, his list of crimes was already extensive. He had burnt down the houses of two wizards living in Hogsmeade, the only officially acknowledged of the crimes. He had also attacked several Ministry workers and, by the look of it, kidnapped one of them. No one could see any pattern to these random acts, and Harry decided he wouldn't bother to try and find one; instead he simply breezed through the notes.   
  
Shoving the pieces of parchment back into the file, Harry's thoughts returned to the women he had found. He found himself picturing her face, trying desperately to work out from where he knew her. After minutes of thoroughly searching his brain, Harry resigned himself to waiting until the next day to find out. He was vaguely aware that there was a potion that would allow him to remember, but he hadn't the energy to even look it up. Anyway, Lupin had ordered him to go to St. Mungos and question the woman tomorrow, to try and find out who it was that had kidnapped her; he might be able to find out then. Harry wasn't sure why he felt slightly apprehensive about doing this, he had questioned many victims during the war. They had been the lucky ones. Most had not survived.  
  
He slowly clicked shut the old briefcase, and then stood up, stretching as he did so. Although it wasn't late, Harry decided to go to bed. His appointment at the hospital was scheduled for ten in the morning, and Harry had a suspicion that the nurse on the 'Spell Damage Ward' would be only too happy for another chance to jibe at him for being late. With a slight jolt, he remembered that Daniel was off for the next two weeks. He didn't grudge his partner for taking a break, hell, together they had in the last six months neutralised just over thirty Dark Wizards, and spent a significant part of the rest of the time in the hospital. A break was just what Daniel needed, although he hadn't managed to persuade Harry to join him. Harry felt as though he was running himself into the ground, and stranger still, he didn't mind. He thought maybe if he stopped every crime, captured every criminal, solved every mystery, then in the future everyone could live safe from evil.  
  
For the second time that night, Harry sighed loudly. He missed his friends, he missed his family and he missed the normal life that he had fleetingly enjoyed during his first years at Hogwarts. Everything had been destroyed by the war. All that remained was the tattered remains of a society. Harry's friends were gone; either dead or else run to other countries, safer countries. He longed to belong, to be loved again. As he fell asleep, there was a fleeting tear in his eye. It slowly ran down his cheek onto his chin, and then dripped onto the soft mattress. More would follow. 


End file.
